Wire Reports
Wire Reports
AP-NY-02-01-98 1646EST
TAVARES, Fla. (AP) - Animal torture and mutilations, teens drinking each other's
blood, a girl's parents bludgeoned to death and a corpse marked with occult markings.
Sounds like stock elements of a horror movie, but on Monday jury selection
was set to begin in the trial of a teen-ager whose alleged vampire cult is
accused of committing all of the above acts.
Accused cult ringleader Rod Ferrell, 17, could face the death penalty if
convicted of a charge of first degree murder.
Ferrell is nervous, especially about whether it's possible to find jurors in
this rural area who have not heard about the lurid case, says his lawyer William Lackay.
``I think it's going to be hard but not impossible,'' Lackay said of his chances
for success.
Important to the case is the testimony of Heather Wendorf, a 16-year-old cult
devotee whose parents were beaten to death in their home in November 1996.
That afternoon, Miss Wendorf and Ferrell - a friend who was the cult's
``sire'' - performed a blood drinking ritual in a cemetery to induct, or
``cross over,'' her as a fellow vampire, according to investigators.
``The person that gets crossed over is like subject to whatever the sire
wants,'' Miss Wendorf said in a deposition. ``Like the sire is boss basically.
They have authority over you.''
In the cemetery, investigators say, she and Ferrell talked about their plans
to leave town. Ferrell allegedly discussed killing Miss Wendorf's parents, but
she told him not to harm them, investigators allege.
Ferrell, Miss Wendorf and others had plotted for seven months through letters
and phone conversations to run away together. Considered misfits when they met
at Eustis High School, the two found solace in each other's company. When Ferrell
later moved to Kentucky, they stayed in touch.
On the day they left town, they left behind the corpses of Richard Wendorf and
Naoma Queen, prosecutors charge.
The two were found bludgeoned at their home in Eustis, about 35 miles northwest
of Orlando. Wendorf was beaten severely in the face; Queen was found face-down
on a bloody kitchen floor.
A ``v'' sign surrounded by circular marks was burned into Wendorf's body. Police
said it was the sign of Ferrell's vampire clan and each circular mark represented a
clan member.
Only Ferrell is charged with the actual killing. Another teen, Howard Scott Anderson,
17, is accused of being a principal to murder by being at the house but doing nothing
to stop the killings. He faces the death penalty despite the reduced charge.
Charged with being accessories to murder are Kentucky teens Dana L. Cooper, 20,
and Charity Keesee, 17. They do not face the death penalty.
The two were not at the house at the time but later left town with the others in
the Wendorfs' stolen car. All five were caught a few days later in Louisiana.
Miss Wendorf was cleared by a grand jury.
Although his lawyer says he's nervous, friends have described Ferrell as
hostile and prone to animal torture.
He may have had a troubled family life as well. His mother, Sondra Gibson,
pleaded guilty in Kentucky last November to trying to entice a 14-year-old
boy into having sex as part of a vampire initiation ritual.
John Goodman, a Kentucky cult member who didn't travel with Ferrell to Florida,
said his friend ``had become possessed with opening the Gates to Hell, which
meant he would have to kill a large number of people in order to consume their
souls. By doing this, Ferrell believed that he would obtain super powers.''
When questioned by investigators, Miss Wendorf said the only reason she went
with the group was because she had no place to go and feared she would be blamed
for the murders. She said she learned about the murders during the trip and
was distraught at hearing her parents were dead.
MIKE SCHNEIDER
AP-NY-02-01-98 1646EST
AP-NY-02-05-98 1216EST
TAVARES, Fla. (AP) - A 17-year-old vampire cult leader pleaded guilty Thursday
to killing the parents of one of his cult members and to armed burglary and
robbery just as opening statements got under way in his trial.
Rod Ferrell could face either death of life in prison without the possibility
of parole. The penalty phase begins next Thursday.
Just minutes into prosecutor Brad King's remarks to jurors, Ferrell's
attorney interrupted the double murder trial to confer with his client about
entering a plea.
Jurors, relatives of the couple who were slain, prosecutors, reporters and
the judge filed out of the courtroom so Ferrell could talk privately with his attorneys.
``Mr. Ferrell has indicated he may want to do something to change things,''
said William Lackay, Ferrell's public defender.
Ferrell had pleaded innocent to two counts of first-degree murder for
bludgeoning to death Richard Wendorf and Naoma Ruth Queen on Nov. 25, 1996,
in their home in Eustis, 35 miles northwest of Orlando.
Prosecutors had planned to use a combination of DNA evidence and Ferrell's
own statements against him.
The couple's daughter, Heather Wendorf, fled with Ferrell and three other
cult members to Louisiana after the killings. Miss Wendorf was cleared of
any charges by a grand jury last year.
Howard Scott Anderson, 17, of Mayfield, Ky., and Dana L. Cooper, 20, and
Charity Keesee, 17, both of Murray, Ky., are charged with being principals
to murder. They are to be tried later in the year.
During jury selection Wednesday, candidates were asked questions about mental
illness, drug abuse and self-mutilation. Defense attorneys had filed motions
indicating they would claim Ferrell, of Murray, Ky., suffered from a personality
disorder and was intoxicated at the time of the killings.
Ferrell regularly cut himself and sucked his cult members' blood.
Court papers filed Wednesday described in greater detail the cult's drug abuse
and sex rituals in Kentucky.
Cult members would take drugs and have group sex, according to a report of a
psychological examination of Sondra Gibson, Ferrell's mother. Ms. Gibson was
examined by a court-appointed psychologist in Christian County, Ky., after she
was arrested for enticing a 14-year-old friend of Ferrell's to have sex. She
pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the charge in November and was in court Wednesday.
Ms. Gibson, 35, told the psychologist that members of Ferrell's vampire group
gathered at her house and were abusive toward her. She said she couldn't control
them and a member of the group raped her repeatedly during vampire ritual sessions.
Her alleged rapist ``told her that she would have to get with one of the men in
the group to `cross over,' which apparently meant engaging in sex and mutually
drinking each other's blood in order to become vampire,'' according to the report.
She said she chose the man's 14-year-old brother, believing he was 18 years old.
Ms. Gibson believed at the time that the vampire group had supernatural powers.
She denied using any drugs, but said she believed she was drugged several times
by members of the group.
AP-NY-02-05-98 1216EST
AP-NY-02-27-98 1009EST
TAVARES, Fla. (AP) - A state judge sentenced the teen-age leader of a vampire
cult to Florida's electric chair Friday, and at the same time urged the prosecution
of victims' daughter.
Rod Ferrell, 17, of Murray, Ky., showed little emotion as Circuit
Judge Jerry Lockett stayed with Monday's jury recommendation of death sentences
for the crow-bar slayings of a central Florida couple in their home.
``I think you are a disturbed young man,'' Lockett said. ``I think your family
failed you. I think society failed you.''
Ferrell pleaded guilty to killing Richard Wendorf and Naoma Ruth Queen of Eustice,
about 30 miles northwest of Orlando, on Nov. 25, 1996, when he and three
members of his blood-sucking cult came to Florida from Kentucky to help the
couple's daughter run away.
Charges against the couple's daughter, Heather, were dropped when a grand
jury failed to indict. Lockett urged the prosecution to try again.
``It is the strong suggestion of this court that the grand jury be
reconvened,'' Lockett said. ``There is genuine evil in the world. There
is dark side and light side competing in each of us.''
There are still some unanswered questions in Heather Wendorf's role in slaying,
said the judge, adding that some witnesses who testified in Ferrell's sentencing
hearing did not speak to the grand jury.
There was little emotion from Ferrell's mother, Sondra Gibson, during Friday's
sentencing.
During the weeks-long sentencing hearing, testimony indicated she had introduced
her son to the occult and shared in his practice of vampirism.
``I think Rod Ferrell's mother should be trial for some of this,'' Lockett added.
AP-NY-02-27-98 1009EST
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